Kvinneakt

Yep, the famous "Expose Yourself To Art" statue has finally returned to city streets, after an extended absence due to MAX construction. I posted about it when she was first removed, way back in November 2006, and at the time I speculated she might not be coming back, and might end up in the Pearl District or someone's private collection or something. It occurred to me later that she might not be asked back due to the whole nekkidness thing, so as not to alarm children and suburbanites. But here she is, and this time they've moved her to the corner of 6th and Morrison, right next to Pioneer Courthouse Square, I suppose so the tourists can find her more easily. I do wonder what would've happened if she wasn't famous, though.





The new prominent location is probably also so we can flaunt just how openminded we like to think we are. I have to say, though, that when I was taking these photos more than one person looked at me funny, like I was freakin' Larry Flynt or something. I mean, I'm used to attracting a little attention when taking photos of art downtown. The usual reaction is to look at me, puzzled, and then look at the art with a startled expression as though they'd never noticed it before, and then keep on walking. Generally I like to believe I'm performing a valuable public service by doing this, drawing people's attention to things they've walked past a zillion times without ever really looking at. Drawing people's attention to their tax dollars at work, that sort of thing. And generally I like to believe I'm entitled to massive government grants and subsidies for performing this valuable public service, although not once has anyone from city hall ever called to offer me money, the freakin' ingrates.



But in this particular case I'm not so sure. It occurred to me later that I could've played with the situation a little, talking to the statue like it was a model shoot -- you know, the usual "work it baby, yeah, that's it, a little to the right". If I was more of a ham and actually wanted the attention, that might've been entertaining, I guess.



Another idle concern is whether nekkid art affects how web-filtering services rate this humble blog. I really don't know how that works, since I don't think they explain their methods in any detail. I think it tends to involve a room full of people paid to look at photos all day and categorize them on an "I know it when I see it" basis. So it's a real crapshoot, I guess. I mean, I'm not going to refuse to cover something out of fear that people in Utah (for example) can't get to it at work. But I do think it would be kind of a shame if that happened. And think of the irony -- it would be safe for city streets, apparently, but not safe on the internet. Weird.

Anyway, it occurred to me (and I was mildly annoyed at this point) that if passers-by are going to look at me like a perv for taking these photos, I might as well get a shot of the feet, so here they are:



I haven't taken the time to gather an extensive "stuff from the interwebs" section this time, and there does seem to be less out there about it than you'd expect. Here are the few items I've cobbled together:

• The recent remake of the classic poster, this time starring the Vera Katz statue on the Eastbank Esplanade.
  
  
• three Flickr photos
  
  
• two articles mentioning her in passing.